Courageous Joy

It's been a very long week. I'm hoping for a good night of sleep tonight but doubting it will happen.

Not only is Stacia teething but Zander has almost certainly gotten into something....he hasn't slept in 3 nights. This is night 4. Mike says he's better tonight...I guess. I think I've been too close to the situation today to notice if things are improving. At times I wonder if I'm "excusing" bad behavior....but he's held accountable for his actions. We simply are doing all we can to make it easier for him to be obedient. Really, I consider his diet to be part of "discipline" for him. I often think of the verse "Train up a child in the way he should go...." and when you study that out it means "train up a child according to his natural bent"...certainly that would include his personality, spiritual gifts, life dreams...but I think for Zander this food sensitivitiy is part of his natural bent.....training that does train him..... The last few days are more than "bad behavior". He's like Jekyl and Hyde. His personality changes dramatically. We were at the lake with friends and he was totally apart from everyone for several hours. Totally anti-social. Yes, there's the melt downs when you try to discuss ANYTHING with him. He begins to say agressive things. He can't look you in the eye. He doesn't want to wear clothes. He doesn't sleep.....it's really much more than "bad behavior" that a child could/should control. The frustrating thing is that we can't think of ANYTHING different that he has eaten. The only thing I can think of is that I make fresh cookies for him.....this time I froze a lot of dough. He loves the dough. He'll eat 2 or 3 cookies and leave them alone....but I've found him several times this week eating lots of cookie dough...it's now all gone. I don't know WHY it would affect him in the dough form and not baked....but I'm wondering if it's a huge over dose of sucanat this week. I just don't know...but I know a God who loves this little one even more than we do.

Stacia is all stuffed up. We used the blue sucky monster to try to clear her nose. One tooth is really going to be through "soon"....gum is splitting.

I literally slept an hour last night...so why am I writing? It relaxes me. {G}

Other than the nature center we had speech today and then I had a big meeting at the base chapel. This was a meeting with both the Catholics and Protestant lay leader teams for Fr. Jim and Mike to explain the changes the Air Force has recently made. We're loosing 30% of our chaplains/enlisted staff. Our maj com has also decided to cut out ALL approrpiated funds for the chapels in AETC...this means all contracts for things like musicians and sunday school directors is gone. It was a sober meeting...but I also sensed a determination to "make it work".

I came home and went on a walk with Arielle, Nolan, Zander and Jamin. Jamin has been doing lawns to earn money for the AK missions trip. I'm so proud of the boys...they are going to try to earn the $900 for their fare up and the $400 for the trip....they have a couple of fund raising ideas.

I'm very sore. The 8 minute moves this a.m. consisted of 48 lunges per leg and some sort of lift that I thought was supposed to work on the back of my thighs but seems to have worked on the tush...because I can barely move. I don't even know if I can ride the bike in the a.m.

OK I'm relaxed and it's time to get a nap in before Stacia wakes up and can't breath or Zander needs some cuddling....he gets bad dreams when he's off the diet. I really need to quit disbelieving that this food thing is so important to him...it is.